


Ringing Forth the Dead

by John_Steiner



Category: Fantasy - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-19 08:48:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22675048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Summary: Once a respected Paladin from the Order of Illumination, Teimhnean Adair languishes in a dungeon for more years than he could track. Struggling to survive in his underground cell, Teimhnean nonetheless maintains his warrior fitness and training. Teimhnean also recites from the sacred tome, bound to his spirit, and sours as Teimhnean ruing darkens his soul. Teimhnean's miraculous powers degrade into dark arts. An unknown benefactor slips armor, weapons, and keys to Teimhnean, who then frees himself and uses his prayer to muster an army where only the dead remain.
Kudos: 1





	Ringing Forth the Dead

Paladins were the fists, the spine, and the feet for the Order of Illumination. For centuries they brought justice to prince, priest, and peasant alike. Yet, one paladin stretched his code too far for the liking of the nobles, in that he stood up for the Briar Folk, beings much like men yet shorter and more bestial in nature.

Teimhnean Adair knew that the Briar Folk had once been a free people living their natural ways before being conquered, and witnessed firsthand the injustices they lived under as virtual slaves. He'd risen an army from their ranks and fought against the forces of the noble family who inherited the Briar Lands by marriage and subterfuge.

After his defeat, Teimhnean had been imprisoned along with all the Briar Folk who fought at his side and even their families. Unknown years past for Teimhnean, whose only tick of time was in hearing fewer voices of his fellow inmates in a dungeons built deep underground, where above hide the corpses of another battlefield long forgotten. Eventually, Teimhnean stopped hearing anyone speak, not even the guards who daily brought his meager ration.

That one meal each day had always been inadequate, Teimhnean learned early in his confinement. It required him to learn how to lure and trap rats and insects. Particularly true, for in his unlit cell Teimhnean continued to practice his fighting form, work his muscles, and attempt reciting passage from his tome. In the dark he read, carefully feeling fingertips over the pages. There would've been no light at all were he not a paladin of the Order of Illumination.

The eyes of paladins who reach the final ranks of training bare forth a golden white glow. Yet, Teimhnean's eyes now shown with a searing red of dejection, loathing, and vitriol. His hatred of the noble house that unjustly imprisoned him, and the Order of Illumination who gave him up in trade for political favor smoldered ceaselessly within the dank unlit cell, outside of which Teimhnean had not seen nor set foot from for nearly thirty years. His door stood unique in the dungeon, for being solid and not barred, lest he see enough to plot his escape.

The Order of Illumination allowed for Teimhnean's imprisonment as part of a negotiation, with only two possessions permitted to the expunged paladin; a loin cloth and his tome. What both the order and the nobles forgot was that a paladin and his tome were bound by spirit, as each paladin was tasked with writing their prayers and incantations into the pages using their own blood. The mistake was letting a fallen paladin languish in a cell and his soul to sour. For as the bearer of a tome darkens in spirit, so do the inscribed words of the tome that imbues the paladin with the power of miracles.

"What be that scratching?" Teimhnean grumbled to his book in the corner of the dark cell. "Dare I hope for bigger vermin on which to dine?"

He'd heard the sound over what must have been weeks, after his meals were no longer delivered, yet each night it appeared to grow closer. Then came a waking moment, where he no longer heard the scratching and shifting of dirt behind the walls and under the floor. Instead, he saw the lower portion of wall and floor had collapsed into a tunnel someone had dug. A weak glow revealed something else to Teimhnean.

Down into the earthen shaft, Teimhnean saw armor piled up awaiting a wearer. He saw a sword, an axe, and a ring of keys. Teimhnean initially listened for the prospect of a guard arriving, though came to suspect they were hoping to starve him to death.

Then, Teimhnean climbed down the sloped excavated tunnel to bright the armor and weapons up. First, he donned the simple robes, next the padded under armor, then the chain mail, and at last the full plate steel. His tome still possessed its chains, allowing him to fasten it to the armor.

Sheathing the sword on his back, Teimhnean then brought forth the axe and the keys to his own cell door. Teimhnean never saw the lock on the other side, but he became intimately familiar with its sound. Each fragment of iron had been mapped deep into his consciousness, such that Teimhnean was able to reach out through the food slot to work the correct key in the first time.

"Tis time, my brothers in arms," Teimhnean declared to the voiceless dead throughout the prison. "I will muster you forth to fight for freedom once more."

Cell by cell, Teimhnean strode to cite from his tome the spell of life. Though, because of his own darkening, the power he brought into the dungeon was not resurrection, rather a rickety shambling of undeath. Bodies, covered by filth, mildew, and years of dust, drew moisture from the air and ground. Severed heads left dangling by chains in the prison halls slowly opened their rotted mouths in an attempt to chant with Teimhnean. Those former Briar Folk whose bodies remained together stood up and stumbled toward the bars of their cell.

The ring of keys, once wielded by Teimhnean, cease to merely open the way from cells. They became conduits between the living world and the dark abyss into which souls tumble upon death. On that moment Teimhnean became an unholy gatekeeper, granted the authority by the darkness to combat the forces of light.

"Follow me, dauntless brave," Teimhnean rallied his risen men. "For I will lead you to arms, and once your hands again feel cold steel, I will lead you to victory over our mutual enemies. Muster forth!"

Creaking ligaments and leathery grinding of decayed muscle was the sound of undead attempting to sound their battle cry. Rejoined with his army, Teimhnean marched down the corridors of the prison. Along the way, he encountered no guards. It wasn't until he ascended the steps, unlocking heavy iron-bound oak doors along the way, that Teimhnean realized what transpired above.

Revolution anew had grown, though Teimhnean hardly cared who or why. Someone among them must have known of his imprisonment and sought to dig from the ground a powerful ally.

"Teimhnean," cried a voice from a man clad in dented and unpolished armor of the Order of Illumination. "You live! You, our champion, we call for you to fight with us!"

At that moment Teimhnean realized, sizing up the aged armor the younger paladin wore, that the Order must have been defeated and banished. Whoever this young pup was, never trained and studied in the traditions of the Order. The Order's acquiescence apparently bought them nothing from the nobles, and so the young man must have come across the armor stashed away, and sought to draw inspiration.

"We fight," Teimhnean called back to the man approaching him. "Yet, not together."

In one sweep, Teimhnean's axe took the young man's head off with a flinging ring of shattered chain mail links and leather shreds. Behind Teimhnean, the undead spewed forth from the subterranean dungeon, much to the horror of the living fighters from both sides of this new rebellion. Having become armed and armored, the dead army followed Teimhnean into battle, heedless of who they crossed swords with.

For two days, Teimhnean and his corpse army cut, stabbed, and slashed their way to victory over both sides. Upon a pile of slain bodies fashioned into a throne, Teimhnean sat and surveyed the domain hewed from his enemies' possession.

"Restlessly, do we march," declared Teimhnean, his mailed and plated fist shook before the undead. "Until all who brought us down low will lay at our feet! From this field we bring a new Order of the Abyss! The darkness hungers for souls, and we will pay that toll as tribute for our freedom!"

From the rain and blood soaked mud reached up more hands, more deprived of flesh than the Briar Folk dead. At Teimhnean's behest, they stripped weapons and armor from the fallen, and then marched alongside Teimhnean's own brothers of decay. A marching campaign that ground under its rotted heels many fiefdoms.


End file.
